Leading the financial literacy push

Leading the financial literacy push

If Angel Rich has her way, learning how to build a solid credit score and save for retirement would be as easy as posting a selfie or sending a tweet.Almost five years after leaving an analyst job at Prudential Financial, Rich is making waves and wooing investors with Credit Stacker, a smartphone game that teaches financial literacy through a simulated life of important decisions and investments.

Rich’s goal combines lessons she learned from her historically black middle-class neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., her early success in finance and a desire to show others a path to sustained financial health. “It’s important for us to be able to teach these underserved communities the importance of home ownership, credit, financial literacy, investments and all of those things because the wealth gap between the black community and the rest of the population is so exorbitant,” Rich said during a phone interview.

“There has to be an expedited and serious approach to financial literacy and financial empowerment right now for us to catch up.” Rich grew up in Kingman Park, one of Washington’s first neighborhoods designed for black homeowners. As rapid gentrification pushed out the area’s residents, Rich said few were equipped with the knowledge to weather the 2008 financial crisis and stand up to the changing community dynamics.